Burning
by Inthannon
Summary: All seems to be good, but Gorski is still out for revenge. Definitely an M-rating and not for a smutty reason! Do not read if you feel uncomfortable with abduction and torture. You've been warned. Indications of Vic/Walt pairing.


A/N So this popped into my head.. It's dark and full of terrors it seems. My head that is. And the fic too. Very dark and it contains torture. I suggest you turn away if you are squeamish or easily shocked. Definitely an M if not an MA-rating, and not for a good, smutty reason. You have been warned!

Hints of Vic/Walt pairing.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own any characters; I just took them out to play…

* * *

Her arms were in agony, shoulders burning from the tension caused by pretty much her whole weight hanging on her arms. Her wrists were on fire too, the rope around them had rubbed the skin raw as she'd struggled against them in the boot of the car. Now trails of blood were running toward her elbows. Vic could barely feel her fingers, the pressure cutting off most of the blood to her hands. She did have a vague idea as to what had happened to bring her here.

They'd been out celebrating Henry's release and finding out that Branch wasn't crazy after all, but that David Ridges' brother had shot Branch as a part of a misguided revenge plot. Apart from not having solved Walt's wife's murder and the feeling of unease caused by Gorski's last message to her, everything had been good. Even with the fact that, or maybe because, Sean had left without showing any inclination to come back, she had felt that there was a chance that things might settle down for a while.

She struggled to remember what had happened after she'd left the Red Pony. She'd said goodnight to everyone, hugging Branch and Henry telling them she was glad they were ok and back, slapping Ferg on the shoulder, nodding at Cady and briefly laying her hand on Walt's wrist to reassure him that she would help him find out the truth about Martha's murder. She hoped no one had seen the way her arm had twitched with the feel of Walt's warm skin under her palm. She'd said her goodnights and walked out. Her car had been parked at the very edge of the lot and she remembered reaching for the driver's side door. After that there was nothing until the trunk.

She'd woken up in a small enclosed space with her wrists, ankles and knees tied together and her wrist ties were attached to the side of the trunk with a cable tie. As she couldn't bring her knees up either, she'd assumed her legs were similarly attached. The car was moving along what seemed to be a smooth straight road. There was daylight peeking through the gap of the trunk lid, and after quick calculations she realised that whoever had taken her had had her for at least six hours as it had been midnight when she'd left the bar and dawn was around six a.m. this time of year. Her head had been throbbing viciously and there had been a horrible taste in her mouth along with a large wad of fabric that worked as a gag. Somehow, Gorski (Vic was pretty sure it was him, there was no one else in her life crazy and/or stupid enough to do something like this) had managed to knock her out.

It had been a long time before the road had changed onto something bumpier and dirt covered after a left turn. In that time Vic had tried to pull, wiggle out of and stretch the ropes that tied her wrists together before finally realising that further struggling would only incapacitate her further as the rough rope dug in. She had attempted to wear through the cable tie, but that had been such slow going that the car pulled to a stop before she managed to get free.

She could remember Gorski's face as he'd opened the lid of the trunk and then nothing again. The next time she'd woken up, she was hanging tied from a bar that was attached to the ceiling, her toes barely touching the floor. Her legs seemed to be attached to a metal ring on the floor. The room was empty, the windows covered with various pieces of plywood and planks. There was not enough there to observe and try to keep from thinking about the pain steadily building in her arms. That had been what felt like days ago, but the shifting of the stray rays of light on the floor told her that it was in fact less than half a day. She wondered what Ed had in mind concerning her. Wondered whether there was any way to get out of this situation with her life.

* * *

By noon Walt was worried. Usually Vic arrived to the office early and even when she was late, she was never this late. And she always called in to let who ever answered know that she was running late. He fidgeted a moment longer, straightening the pile of papers on his desk, before finally getting up again and marching to the door of his office. He poked his head through and was about to ask yet again (although he was pretty sure the answer was going to be the same it had been the two previous times he'd asked) whether any of them had heard from Vic.

"No Walt, we haven't heard from Vic." Branch's tone was a mainly exasperated, but there was a tint of worry in it as well.

"Ok. Branch, get in your car and drive to her house, see if her car's parked out front. It wasn't at the Pony when I left last night so she drove from there. Ferg, you look into trying to get the GPS on her patrol car turned on so we can see where it is. Ruby, if she calls or gets in touch, let me know. I'm going to check around the Pony to make sure there's nothing there."

His team each nodded and got to work. It was a quiet day with nothing much going on, so making them all look for Vic didn't seem like over-kill. Besides he knew how much Branch and Ferg hated paperwork, so they weren't going to argue. Moreover, they all felt protective over the young woman, despite the fact that they knew she could take care of herself as well as any of them.

Climbing into his truck Walt remembered the feel of her hand on his wrist, as she wordlessly communicated to him that now that they'd made sure Henry wasn't paying for a crime he didn't commit and that the man who shot Branch was behind bars, she would help him with his wife's case. He appreciated the sentiment and the help; she was one hell of a cop with plenty of experience of murder cases from Philly. Most of the murders he had to solve were pretty straightforward compared to big city crime. Now he just had to find out why she wasn't at work.

* * *

The pain was severe. She had even slipped into unconsciousness a few times in the last few hours, as at least then the pain wasn't so bad. Nothing she did made it better. No matter how much she tried to support her weight on her toes, she was tied too high. She could just about graze the floor with the tips of her bare feet. That was another thing about her current situation. Gorski was not a complete idiot and had removed her boots and socks so she couldn't try to slip her ankle ties off by removing them.

Suddenly a door behind her opened with a creak of old hinges. She could smell Gorski's cologne. It was the same he always wore, the one she remembered from the days when they'd been more than friends. Before she'd met and married Sean. Only now the smell made her sick to her stomach. He'd obviously not washed in a few days and adding more of the stuff didn't entirely hide the waft of stale sweat and unwashed man, which didn't help matters.

Slowly he walked around her and she could feel his eyes, like fingers stroking her figure. When she could finally see him, she wasn't surprised to still see the missing teeth and faint scar where Hector had broken his nose. The look in his eyes was a mixture of anger, hate and lust, all enhanced by a spark of something undefinable that made her feel that he was even more unhinged than she'd realised.

As Gorski stepped closer, Vic tried to squash the urge to try and shuffle further away from him. To not let him touch her. She did manage to move back a fraction of an inch despite her already precarious position, but it was enough for Gorski to notice. The slap across her face was so sudden she did not see it coming. Her head swung to the side and she lost the precious bit of balance she'd had and her shaking legs gave out underneath her. The retaliatory pain from her arms was terrible and she was sure her arms would soon separate from her body at her shoulders. Her feet scrabbled against the coarse grain of the wooden planks under her, desperately trying to find that balance again so she could take even a little weight off her screaming arms.

Suddenly there was give in the rope that was all that held her up and her knees approached the floor at an alarming pace. And then there were arms around her, one fixed around her waist and the other over her chest, the hand claiming a place over her right breast. He easily lifted her so that her feet managed to finally lay flat against the ground. Her exhausted legs were trembling, but held her weight and she was able to lower her elbows by half a foot or so. The feeling of blood returning to tissues suddenly released from constant tension was agony. Agony that promised relief for the future. Unbidden tears escaped the corners of her eyes as she tried to hold back the whimper that would have been strong enough to escape the muffling influence of the gag still in her mouth.

She stood there shaking, holding back any evidence of the hurt that was raging through her body, eyes closed, breathing as evenly as possible through her nose. She could hear Gorski's breathing behind her and dreaded his next move. He might have given her a bit of relief for now, but there was no knowing what his plans were for her immediate future. Vic was sure that if things went according to his plans, she'd never get out of that house alive.

Suddenly the rope above her tightened again and she felt herself being lifted back into the same position as before, hanging in the air by her wrists, toes just barely touching the floor. This time she didn't manage to stifle the groan of pain that was half way to a scream as the pain in her arms redoubled.

Gorski reached towards her face and pulled out the gag. Her mouth was so dry it felt like she had no water left in her body. He raised a bottle of water to her mouth he wrenched open with a firm grasp on her jaw, not even giving her the chance to open it herself. The reason for the cruel hold on her jaw became obvious when she finally tasted the liquid he poured into her mouth. Saltwater. Gagging and retching she started fighting against him, pulling on her already painful arms, but not caring, because the other alternative was drowning. Or swallowing. When she finally stopped fighting, he stopped pouring and let go of her jaw. Immediately she could feel her body rebelling against the foul new addition to her stomach. Her dry and cracked lips were burning because of the salt and felt even worse once her stomach had done its utmost to empty itself.

Gorski, who had stood well back while she threw up, now approached her with a smirk on his face.

"No more the tough, foul-mouthed bitch, are you Vicki? No, now you're just piece of traitorous trash hanging from the ceiling, like a fish on a hook."

He slowly prowled around her holding something in his hands that Vic couldn't see through the tears that clouded her eyes. He stopped his circling behind her and she felt him step closer.

"You know, I loved you once. I was almost ready to leave my wife for you. And then you come to me all of a sudden and say it's over. Like it meant nothing to you. And then… and then you rat on us, you on your high horse of moral superiority. I knew then I'd dodged a bullet when you dumped me. But I never could stop dreaming about those nights we had together. Even after everything you did to us. Now I'm going to stop dreaming."

And then his voice faded away, chased by the spine bending agony spreading from a point on her back, just above the right hip. _Electricity, he's electrocuting you_. The thought flittered across the blank expanse that was her mind as the pain made everything else disappear.

* * *

Branch had called it in. Vic's car was at her house, but there was no answer at the door. He had knocked for a long time, before busting the door and going in. Apart from there being no trace of her husband in the house (as in all his clothes and shoes were gone), there was nothing amiss inside. No sign of Vic either. Then Branch had found the divorce papers on the coffee table, where Vic had obviously been studying them. Her wedding ring was there too.

When Walt barged into the house, Branch quickly filled him in with all that he had observed so far.

"Get your kit and take prints off Vic's car. See if anyone else has driven it. She usually leaves it on the drive, not the road." Walt's terse orders are thrown over his shoulder as he makes his way towards Vic's bathroom. Wondering exactly why Walt knows where Vic usually parks he hurries to his car to grab his kit and take the prints Walt wanted. It's looking more and more like Vic is in some serious trouble.

* * *

Walt knows he should feel bad about literally rifling through Vic's dirty laundry, but he has to check that the clothes she'd been wearing last night were not there. Or on the bedroom floor, or the washing machine, or the dryer. Her bed is neatly made, showing no sign of having been slept in recently.

The divorce papers were a bit of a shock, but he had realised a few weeks back that Vic had stopped wearing the wedding ring that had suddenly become a permanent fixture after his relationship with Lizzie had started. He'd be lying to himself if he said that he hadn't wondered why Vic had stopped wearing it, now the reason was abundantly clear. He couldn't help wondering for the briefest second as to what that would mean to him.

Shaking himself out of his wildly inappropriate thoughts, he walked to the phone and called Ruby.

"Sheriff's station, how can I help?"

"Ruby, it's me. Can you go through the employment files and look up Vic's husband's number. Her car is here, but there is no sign of her."

"Oh dear. You think she'll be ok? Where could she be?"

"Ruby. The number. Please."

"Ok. I'll call you back as soon as I find it." He could hear the slight huff in her voice that was nevertheless overtaken by worry for the only other woman on their team.

"Call it and connect it through the radio. I'll be on the move."

"Sure thing Walt."

"Thanks Ruby."

He hung up and took one last look around. There was no sign that Vic had made it back home last night. And the way her car was parked on the road outside the house rather than the drive, where it had been the two times he had visited her house in the past, would to him suggest that she hadn't even made it to her car at the bar. Cursing under his breath for not following his instincts and walking her to her car last night, he turned and walked out to where Branch was just finishing lifting prints from the door handle and steering wheel.

"Anything?"

"Yeah, got a couple of good lifts. Probably Vic's though."

"Take them to the station, if you find any that are not Vic's, compare them to her husband's prints. I'll talk to him and send him to you. And in the meantime, call Philly PD and get them to send you over the prints of a cop called Ed Gorski."

"You think he might have something to do with Vic going missing?"

"He's been stalking her."

"What?"

"There's old beef between them. Gorski thinks she caused the death of his partner and him his job. He's our prime suspect until we find evidence to the contrary."

"Okay. I'll get to work."

"Oh and Branch, send Ferg to the Pony car park. Tell him to look for evidence of any foul play. I couldn't see anything, but I wasn't really looking for evidence of abduction at that point."

"Ok. Don't worry Walt. We'll get her back."

Walt couldn't answer, so just nodded his head at Branch before walking away. Even his other deputies seemed to have noticed the increased tension between him and the beautiful blonde.

* * *

They were both panting. She with pain and fear at the anticipation of the next touch of the cattle prod. He with some kind of mix of hatred and joy, a cruel smile on his face. It was clear he was finally having his revenge and enjoyed it immensely. She did her best to not beg or give the bastard the satisfaction of her screams, but the occasional grunt or moan escaped despite her best efforts.

She was approaching the point where she would do anything to stop the agony, when he suddenly stepped back, lowering the cattle prod to the floor. Briefly Vic wondered whether it was over, whether he felt she had paid her dues and would now be let go. Then she realised that he was looking at her, evaluating, planning his next move. She was determined not to show fear, so she gazed him right in the eyes, trying to make her face blank. Empty of hate, fear, any emotion that might provoke him to continue.

Before she had time to blink, he was standing so close to her that the smell of his sickly sweet aftershave and unwashed body invaded her nose, almost making her gag. The next moment, he had pulled a knife from his belt and was pushing it under her left eye. The cut stung, but the rest of her body was in so much pain that it didn't fully register.

"Maybe I should just cut out those pretty brown eyes of yours next." His breath was moist and warm on her sweaty cheek as he leaned closer, pressing the knife further into her flesh. She could feel the blood seeping down her cheek and her jaw. Then, just as suddenly, he pulled the knife back and brushed past her. He loosened the rope holding her up again, so she could put the whole soles of her feet on the floor. She heard the door open and close and she was alone.

* * *

She lost count of the hours she stood there, not being able to lower her arms more than half a foot, not being able to sit or lay down. She had turned around to face the door and examine the rig that held her arms tied up above her head. It seemed that the bar she had assumed her hands were tied to, instead had the rope wound around it a few times before following the ceiling to a pulley system by the door that allowed Gorski to raise and lower her arms at will.

There was nothing else in the room. It was clearly and abandoned house, the faded and torn wallpaper on the walls and the boarded up windows were evidence enough of this. She figured that they might still be in Absaroka County, judging by the amount of time she'd been in the trunk. That was assuming that she hadn't been passed out for more than a day. The cracks between the boards showed less and less light, telling her that the first 24 hours, the most critical hours in abduction cases were coming to a close. The sun was setting outside and she had no idea how she was going to get out.

She knew without a doubt that Walt and the rest of the sheriff's department would be looking for her. There was no way they would have missed her not coming to work that morning. She hoped that they found her car and understood that she hadn't left of her own free will. Determined that she wouldn't lose hope, Vic listened with all her might for the sound of a car approaching.

* * *

Vic's husband had been upset when Walt had called him. When Walt had explained that Victoria had gone missing and they needed elimination prints from him, Sean had been more than happy to leave work early and drive to the station. The prints in Vic's car hadn't been a match to Sean, not that Walt believed he would have physically harmed his ex-wife. When the prints of Ed Gorski were faxed in from Philadelphia, and a match was found to the prints recovered from Vic's car, Walt felt like a heavy stone had just sunk into the pit of his stomach and a cold dread was creeping through his veins. He was pretty sure that there was no way Gorski was going to let Vic go alive and unharmed.

Ferg had found an abandoned syringe in the ditch near where Vic's car had been parked the previous night. The DNA test and analysis on the contents had been rushed through the hospital lab by the same doctor who had taken care of Branch after he was shot, after Walt had explained the situation to him. The needle had Vic's DNA on it, and the syringe held a fast acting anaesthetic. The kind that had disappeared from the hospital stores when Gorski had been there. But as the stuff had no use as a recreational drug and didn't have any street value, no one had though to report the theft. That certainly explained the lack of struggle and physical evidence.

Walt had spent the afternoon grilling Vic's neighbours as to anything strange they might have seen the previous night and that was where they got their best lead. The old lady diagonally opposite from Vic's had seen her car pull up and a man getting out of it. The man had then gone to another car that had been parked on the drive way all evening and gone inside. But at that point the milk for her evening cup of cocoa was boiling over. When she'd returned the man had driven off in the other car, leaving Vic's behind. The lady couldn't remember the license plate, except that it was a Wyoming plate on a dark family car with some kind of a red bumper sticker on the left side of the car.

They'd gone to work immediately trying to find an image captured by the few traffic cameras in the county but so far had turned up nothing. Suddenly Ferg busted into Walt's office waving around a piece of paper on his hand.

"I figured it out!"

"What?"

"It's a rental. The sticker reminded me. My mom had to rent a car while hers was in the shop and I remembered the rental having a red bumper sticker on the left side of the car. So I called her about which company she used. She gave me the name and I called them. I gave them the description of the car as well as one of Gorski and his pay dirt. He rented the car two weeks ago and now we have his license plate."

"Good job Ferg, but that doesn't give us the location where Vic is being held." Walt was proud of the good job his deputy had done, but disappointed that the lead wasn't better. They had to find her soon if they were to find her… He couldn't let himself think like that.

"I know. But they also have GPS locators installed in case of theft. We just need a warrant to get the information." Ferg's round face was shining with enthusiasm and joy that he had been the one to crack the case.

Walt got up and slapped Ferg on the shoulder on his way out.

"Where are you off to?"

"To the judge."

* * *

Despite the judge's irritation at being disturbed during the game that she'd been watching live on television, she had quickly given Walt the warrant once all the facts were laid out in front of her. The car company had been equally prompt in delivering the information to the sheriff. That was where their good fortune seemed to have stopped. The tracking device had been disabled. Thankfully it was one of those that pinged its location to the program maintained by the company at steady intervals while working properly, so they had a vague idea as to which direction Gorski could have taken her.

Right now they were all pouring over a map of the area.

"Ok, so if we hope that he wasn't smart enough to realise early that there was a tracking system on the car and he only disabled it when he was already on his way to his hidey hole. What is along this road?" Branch was pointing onwards from the point where the last ping had been.

"It's mainly farms, cattle ranches and such going that way until you hit the next town." Ruby said frowning at the map.

"He wouldn't take her to a town, too many people around, greater chance of getting caught. He would have picked somewhere isolated." Ferg pointed out.

"Do we know of any abandoned properties around this area?" Ruby asked.

Walt could hear their conversation, but he couldn't think of anything to say. There was only one thought pounding through his mind. _I must find her. I must find her._ An endless loop of thought, tinged with something like panic pushed out all other thoughts from his head. She couldn't end up like Martha, not when he was just confessing to himself that he might have feelings for her that went above those he would have for any other colleague. Slowly he forced the single burning thought from his mind and concentrated on the map in front of him.

"What about a cabin? There was an old cabin in the hills here, but Mr. Stevenson died ten years back and I don't think anyone's been there in years." The thought popped out into the calm he had forced his mind to.

Branch glanced up at him, then at Ferg and then back at him. "That could be it."

Nodding to himself and Branch, Walt walked to the gun cabinet and opened it. "Ok, Ruby, you keep looking and thinking in case this one is a bust. Branch, Ferg, grab your gear and let's go."

* * *

Night had fallen by the time Gorski returned. Vic thought she might have fallen asleep standing up for a while, but been jerked back awake by a nasty jolt of her extremely sore shoulders and the feeling of her legs disappearing from beneath her. Since then she had been trying to figure out a way out of her current predicament, the task being made harder and harder by the fogginess in her head. The result of dehydration and lack of non-drugged sleep.

When Gorski opened the door again, Vic's eyes rose to his, knowing that this was likely the end. She had purposefully turned to face the door, hating the thought that he could do something behind her back. He looked briefly surprised to find her there, but then immediately pulled on the rope so that Vic's feet stopped touching the ground and she spun back around to face the opposite wall.

Gorski took his time to secure the rope and to wander so he was standing in front of her. He'd hoisted her higher than before, she couldn't even put her big toes on the floor now. Her shoulders were burning again. She vaguely worried about the state of her fingers, after having limited blood circulation for so long. The look on Gorski's face told her however that she need not worry about her future beyond the next few minutes.

Without saying a word he took out his knife and started to cut her jeans off her legs, steadily down one side and then up the other, leaving her hanging there in her sleeveless shirt and underwear. For a moment she thought he wanted to rape her, but then she saw the knife still in his hand and the baseball bat he had brought in with him. He just wanted to hurt her and see his handiwork before finishing it all.

He started with the bat, raising it in both hands hefting the weight of it, before bringing it down on her ankle with a crushing blow. If the electricity had been bad, this was worse. She could feel something go in her ankle with that blow, could feel the bone snapping underneath the bat. The shout escaped her against her will as her lungs expelled the air in them.

The next strike was more or a poke. He pushed her hip so she started to spin and sway as much as the ropes allowed. The next was a cruel hit across her upper back. She wasn't sure how much time passed but stars were still bursting in her closed eyes three strikes later, when he had hit her in the stomach, thighs and worst of all her left elbow. The pain was breath taking, excruciating and she could tell that something had broken again.

The next was the knife and Vic was sure that this was it. This was the crescendo of Gorski's sick play, this was where he would finally finish his revenge on the woman who had cost them both their jobs and Bobby his life. But it would not be quick or easy. The slices came faster than the hits, soon she was bleeding from various places, the pain curiously dull compared to the agony of her broken arm being made to support her weight.

As he approached her with his knife pointed at her throat, she was relieved it was over. She wouldn't have to feel the pain anymore. She only regretted not seeing her friends anymore, Ruby and Ferg would be devastated. Branch would seek solace in Cady and his job, keep looking for traces of her. And Walt… She wasn't entirely sure how Walt would react. If he felt like she thought he felt, he would be crushed. To have lost another woman to a senseless crime would tear him apart. Make him sink back into the abyss where he had been when they had first met. Or he would do whatever it took and find Gorski and seek revenge. She didn't know which outcome she hoped for, apart from a chance to see his face again and for him to not have to go through loosing another person he held dear.

Gorski was less than three feet away when the door burst open and there was the sound of a gun going off. She could see the sudden jerk of Gorski's head as the bullet took him in the forehead and he crumbled on the ground. Then Walt was there, his arms on her sides, supporting her as the rope was being released and she collapsed. Walt carefully lowered her onto the floor and started cutting through the ropes binding her feet together and onto the loop on the floor. Ferg was at her head, cutting through the ropes on her wrists. Branch was on the phone calling the hospital telling them to expect her, looking at her injuries trying to determine how severe they were.

"I've got you." Was the only phrase she heard and it was the only phrase Walt kept repeating as he carefully helped her bring her arms down to her waist and gathering her gently in his arms. As he stood up, her head shifted to lean against his shoulder and she slipped under into unconsciousness.

* * *

She was woken up by a bright light on her eyelids. As she carefully blinked sleep from her eyes, she saw that a gap in the curtains let through a ray of light that landed right on her face. Blinking some more Vic carefully turned her head to look around. The room was empty except for a creased, ruffled and tired looking man leaning back on a chair, sound asleep. She could feel a little affectionate smile curving the sides of her mouth, until the cut underneath her eye and the slice on the other cheek pulled and started hurting. The pain reminded her of why she was in the hospital and she took tally of the various sources of hurt scattered about her person. Her left arm was in a cast as was her right ankle, what she could see of both her wrists and ankles were covered with bandages, she was pretty sure she had a couple of broken ribs, because breathing was quite painful, and she had more gashes and bruises than she cared to count. At least there didn't seem to be any permanent damage done to her hands as she could still more all ten fingers.

Walt shifted in his sleep, his hat hanging precariously from his fingertips, just on the edge of falling. Vic listened to the reassuring sound of his steady breathing and fell back asleep, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face and the warmth of his presence by her bedside. She was safe.

A/N Reviews are loved as are reviewers. :)


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